More than 100 MetroWest residents prepare for Jimmy Fund Walk

Editor's note: Ashland residents Sue, Dave, Matthew, and Nate Levine were added to the list of local walkers since this article was originally published.

ASHLAND – Standing behind a line of high school football players in Clocker blue Wednesday afternoon, Jake Silver took advantage of a lull in practice to tap the kicker on the shoulder and offer a tip.

Bone cancer robbed Silver, a high school senior, of his chance to play varsity. After Silver underwent surgery and a round of intense chemotherapy, the team made him an unofficial coach. The former kicker can be seen on the field at games and practices most days.

“I love being around them,” Silver said, spinning a football on the sidelines Wednesday. “It makes me feel like I’m still part of the team.”

Silver is one of more than 100 people from MetroWest cities and towns participating in the 2017 Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk, which raises money for cancer research and patient care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

“I was on crutches for a long time and in a wheelchair for a good amount of time too,” said Silver, who will undergo another round of chemotherapy in October. “It feels good to walk, and especially walk for such a good cause.”

Thousands of people are expected to put sneakers to pavement on Sept. 24, and organizers hope to raise $9 million.

“Dana-Farber is one of the reasons I can look at the patients when I’m telling them they have breast cancer, and I …. can tell them the vast majority of patients diagnosed with breast cancer do very well,” Natick resident Carolynn DeBenedectis said.

DeBenedectis, who is also walking, is a radiologist at University of Massachusetts Memorial Health Care. Her job means she is often one of the first doctors to see if a patient has breast cancer, she said. Two years ago, she saw something on the scans for her best friend, Needham’s Beth Garabedian Kenneally.

“We’ve known each other since we were three years old,” DeBenedectis said. “It was quite devastating to do my job, and tell my best friend …. that she had Stage 4 breast cancer.”

Thanks to Dana-Farber, DeBenedectis said, Garabedian Kenneally is doing well, and the two of them, along with their young daughters, will walk together on Sunday.

Holliston’s Liz Cummins gave much of the credit for her recovery from Stage 3C inflammatory breast cancer to her doctor at Dana-Farber, Beth Overmoyer. She said she’s arranged it so that proceeds from her walk Sunday go to Overmoyer’s research.

“She is amazing. Absolutely amazing,” Cummins said. “This is all she does. This is like her crusade, is to treat this.”

Inflammatory breast cancer doesn’t always have the telltale lump associated with other types of breast cancer. Cummins said she saw three different doctors – the last one a breast surgeon – before someone could tell her what was wrong.

She went through five months of chemotherapy, surgery, then six weeks of radiation and, as of her last doctor’s visit, is now cancer free.

“It’s exhausting. You lose a lot of yourself,” Cummins said of the treatment process.

The Walk helps her get some of that back.

“I walked 10 miles the other day. I’m strong again, I’m me again,” Cummins said. “Part of this was to kind of prove to myself that I could do it.”

The iconic mileage of the Walk is the full 26.2 miles of the Boston Marathon, from Hopkinton to Copley Square, but walkers can take advantage of shorter routes. Silver and fellow Clocker and osteosarcoma patient P.J. Ferrier will likely walk the 5K, because surgeries have made walking more difficult than it used to be.

"They're resilient," Ashland High School football coach Andrew McKay said of Silver and 2014 graduate Ferrier. "Their positive outlooks on life kind of inspire us all, and we’re really, really proud of them both."

Find team and individual donation pages at http://www.jimmyfundwalk.org/.

Alison Bosma can be reached at 508-626-3957 or abosma@wickedlocal.com. Find her on Twitter at @AlisonBosma.

HOW TO HELP

To donate to walkers and teams participating in this year's Jimmy Fund Walk, head to http://www.jimmyfundwalk.org, and type the name of a person into the "Find a Walker" search bar on the left.